第 15 页

“Stand back!” I called through the door, then took out my revolver and shot out the lock.

I hurtled down the stone steps to where I had encountered Mr St Clare in his final moments and then ran in the direction from which he had come.

The dreadful stench hit me, a foul, putrid stink which left me gagging. Then followed the sounds; screams of pain and suffering which have stayed with me to this day. I followed the noises to be met with the most disturbing sight I had ever seen.

The large vaulted cellar had been converted into a dimly lit hospital ward. Rusting metal bed frames were lined up on either side almost touching each other.

The ward was full of desperately emaciated men howling in pain like dogs. They were writhing on blood-soaked mattresses or staggering around, bouncing off the walls before falling to the floor with exhaustion. All were naked and truly wretched beings, covered in huge black sores, particularly on their necks, which wept constantly.

Blood was everywhere as life slowly drained from these diseased bodies.

I stood motionless watching in horror unable to speak, scream or move. I wanted to close my eyes and ears, to run and keep running, knowing I was responsible for bringing them here.

A nurse in a face mask appeared and let out a gasp when she spotted me.

“Why are these people like this?” I screamed at her.

She was clearly afraid and started to back away. I still grasped my revolver and shoved it into her face.

“Tell me or so help me God you won’t live to see another day!” I shouted.

She began to sob and spoke through her cries.

“I don’t know, miss, truly I don’t. I’m just here to look after them, I don’t know ’cause we’re not told anything. Just that if we leave we’ll all be found and made the same as them, us and our families too. Please help me, miss, please let me out of here, please.”

I lowered the gun. Clearly my interrogation was pointless and I couldn’t help but pity the poor young girl. She looked vaguely familiar but the mask obscured most of her face.

“Just go, run away now, no-one will find you I promise,” I said.

She started to shake with fear.

“But the professor, he’ll find me then I’ll end up like this and I’d rather die now,” she replied.

I looked around at the wretched figures. One was stumbling blindly towards us; a huge black sore on his neck was weeping a yellow bloody puss. I started to back away but he fell before he could reach me.

“Just get out, now, I am the professor’s wife and I have the authority to protect you so just go, run away and don’t look back. But, if you speak of this to anyone I will come looking for you myself. Just say nothing.”

The petrified young nurse paused to consider her actions then let out a rasping cough.

“Yes miss,” she replied and then ran for the door.

The figure on the floor was reaching up to me. He was signalling towards the revolver in my hand. I understood his meaning and agreed wholeheartedly. These poor, tortured souls awoke my sleeping conscience and I did the kindest thing I possibly could.

I shot each one of them, starting with the man at my feet. I sent a direct shot right through their hearts hoping to give them a death that would be instant and relatively painless.

When all were dead, a haunting silence prevailed, punctuated only by the sound of my own breathing. I stood trying desperately to make sense of it all.

Eventually, I walked from the scene and made my way slowly back up to the bright lights and relative normality of the house, determined to get answers.

The professor was sleeping off the effects of his seizure when I burst into his bedroom. He sat up swiftly, startled by my presence as I rarely entered his room unless summoned.

“I’ve seen it all James, in the cellar. If you don’t tell me everything, then I will tell the whole of London what I’ve just witnessed. I don’t care what you do to me anymore. I just want to get as far away from you and your perverted mind as possible.”

“My apologies Red, I don’t understand to what you refer,” he said calmly and rubbed his eyes sleepily, regarding me inquisitively.

“I’ve been down to the cellar. I blew the lock you had fitted to keep me out and saw those poor suffering creatures and their unimaginable pain. What have you done to them? This is barbaric torture. I shot them all, put them out of their misery like injured animals and I let the nurse go free. Don’t worry, she won’t tell, she’s terrified of you.”

The figure in the bed suddenly became very tense and still, and then he threw back his head and let out a long horrible scream. He shook his fists with rage and his face became scarlet. The guards rushed into the room but he shouted at them to get out. He leapt out of bed and ran to the other side of the room, as though afraid of me. “You stupid, stupid girl!” he cried. “Stay away from me! You will infect me, infect us all you fool!”

I was angry at his insults and began to protest when he uttered the words which suddenly made everything very frighteningly clear.

“It is the plague, the Black Death, and now you are probably infected too. Oh my beautiful, perfectly-formed wife, soon you too will be as those wretches dying that horrible death. You fool! Now all is lost! The whole of London will be infected by the nurse and there is no antidote.

“I do not have the missing papers which contain the formulas necessary for its construction. Behind the painting were only the details of how to construct the disease but the true power comes from having both parts you see, the beginning and the end, the infection and the cure. Red, I do believe you have just unleashed the most deadly disease history has ever known not only on yourself but possibly the whole country!”

He screamed again in frustration, fear and disappointment. I was in a state of complete shock. Was I infected? What would happen to Jude?

I started to sweat and shake. I couldn’t breathe, I was gasping and my heart began to race. The room started to move and my vision faded, all became black and I fell to the floor beside the professor’s bed. Just as I had done after he killed my child.

Chapter Eight

It was the middle of the night; a vile and windswept eve with torrential rain lashing the city. Watson knew that his friend would receive him despite the hour and travelled straight from his patient’s house to 221B Baker Street. He arrived at the doorstep soaked, breathless and greatly agitated.

He banged furiously upon the door to rouse a perturbed Mrs Hudson who was shocked to see his panic-stricken features. He uttered a hasty apology for waking her and rushed past to mount the stairs and disturb Holmes.

But he was still awake, sitting in darkness in front of a fire lost to his own thoughts. He had hardly slept since the murder of Mrs St Clare.

“My apologies Holmes for disturbing you so late but I didn’t know where else to come. I think I have just made a most terrible discovery and I simply don’t know what to do. I desperately need your advice.”

Holmes had rarely seen his calm, stoical friend in such an agitated state and quickly poured him a brandy before ushering him to the opposite fireside chair.

“Watson, calm yourself and tell me what troubles you.”

Watson gratefully took a few sips of brandy.

“I was called out to a patient. A young man came to my door earlier this evening and asked me to come at once and help his wife. He told me she was dying. I could not refuse such a heartfelt request and travelled with him to his house in Whitechapel. Upon entering the house, I was overwhelmed by the most terrible smell and fortunately had a face mask in my medical bag which I applied immediately. I was guided upstairs to the patient’s bedroom and found a young woman in the most desperate state. She was full of fever, coughing up blood and dreadfully pale.

“As she turned in the bed to face me, I noticed something that made my blood run cold. Upon her neck was a huge, weeping black lump and as she reached out her hand to me, her fingers had turned deep purple. I recognised it at once, as any medical man would, as being the mark of the Black Death.

“She has the plague Holmes, the plague! I am simply horrified and astounded. Thank God for my mask and I pray it was enough to save me, but what of the husband and the young children who played beside the bed? What of all of London? I don’t know how to treat it; I just gave her pain relief and left as fast as I could to come straight here to ask for your help.”

The gravity of the situation and the shock of his discovery finally overtook Watson and left him shaking uncontrollably. Holmes fetched a blanket, draped it over his friend’s shoulders and threw another log on the fire. He paced the room silently waiting for Watson to regain composure.

The warmth of the fire and the security of deferring a problem to Holmes’ superior intellect soon began to soothe Watson. As colour returned to his cheeks, Holmes pulled down a large reference book from his vast collection. He turned up the gas in the lamp and the room became bathed in a warm glow. Watson began to understand how Holmes and his calm manner had brought comfort to many a distraught client.

Holmes flicked through the volume, found the right page and started reading aloud.

“The bubonic plague was the most commonly-seen form of the Black Death responsible for the deaths of thousands of people during the spring and summer of 1665. The victim’s skin became covered in black patches; the glands in the groin, armpits and neck became horribly inflamed, the tongue would swell and vomiting would be constant. The victim would suffer agonising headaches, fever and dreadful fits of sneezing just before death.

“The plague was started in the east, possibly China and was thought to have been carried by fleas who feasted off the cities’ rats. The pneumonic plague was the second most commonly seen form of Black Death followed by the septicemic plague. All forms were caused by the same bacterium, Yesinia Pestis.

“The pneumonic plague infected the lungs, causing the victim to cough up saliva mixed with mucus and blood which became free flowing and bright red as the disease worsened. It could be caught by inhaling droplets of infected saliva coughed up by a sufferer. The septicemic plague was the rarest form and caused the victim’s skin to turn dark purple. As the Great Fire of London in 1666 destroyed most of the rats and fleas, the plague was finally wiped out never to be seen again.”

Holmes became silent as he digested this information, gazing into the fire, eyes half closed. Watson knew that such an expression indicated great concentration and he eagerly awaited his friend’s conclusion.

“Watson, I suspect from your description of the young lady’s symptoms that a new and even more deadly strain of the virus now exists which comprises all three forms of plague. She coughed blood, had purple skin and the dreaded swollen lymph glands in the neck. Do you understand what this means?

“The disease would not mutate like this naturally, someone has created it. Someone has made this new virulent strain. Rats... carried by fleas and rats... yes! I remember! Quick Watson, go to my collection of papers from three months ago, bring them to me at once.”

Watson did as he was commanded and felt rather concerned that Holmes was seeing this as an intellectual and scientific problem, perhaps not grasping the reality of the situation. He knew better though than to question the thought process of such a great mind when it was working so ferociously.

They sat together on the floor in front of the fire searching through the papers for whatever it was that this dramatic discovery had triggered in Holmes’ memory. Eventually, Holmes jumped to his feet in delight as he found the desired article.

“You see Watson, I always remember the peculiar, the unusual, because it often proves to be more meaningful than it initially seems. If only I had probed further at the time.”

He began to read the article in his hand.

“Mr Jonas Williams, brother of the celebrated scientist Doctor Wilbur Williams has returned to London after many years travelling overseas. He was believed by many to have been killed by a lion whilst hunting in Africa but has returned to London to find his brother missing and his house burgled. Though the police have made inquiries as to the disappearance of Doctor Williams, no clue has been found and though valuable jewellery was taken from the house, the thieves also took several worthless paintings and various scientific papers which had no apparent value. The police remarked that the house was full of cages containing dead rats.”

Holmes sat back in his chair, his eyes half closed again, and pressed together the tips of his fingers. Watson’s mind raced trying to make sense of it all. He tried to make connections between the conclusion that someone had actually created an even more deadly strain of the plague and an eccentric scientist with a house full of rats.

“We must leave at once,” Holmes finally announced, leaping from his chair and pulling on his coat. “You must take me to the girl, we must find out all we can about where she might have got the infection and make sure no-one else leaves or enters her house. As there is no mention in the press of any other victims, we must assume she is the first. We need to contain it and find anyone who may have come into contact with her. Bring all the face masks you have and anything which can end the girl’s suffering as quickly as possible.”

Once in a hansom, heading to the victim’s house, Watson began chasing answers.

“What is the connection with Doctor Williams, do you think he is responsible?”

“Doctor Williams is notorious for his work on diseases and studies of bacteria. He has published many papers on the subject. But scientists such as he would have no desire to bring back the plague and wipe out the population of London. It would merely be an intellectual problem, a challenge to recreate the virus possibly in order to find an antidote capable of protecting us all if the disease ever returns in a stronger, mutated form.

“If we are correct and he has indeed created a plague then there must also be an antidote. You cannot make an antidote without first having the disease in front of you to study and understand. Then you must test it.

“As rats helped carry the disease in 1665 they were perfect for testing the new strain. That is why his house was full of them. If he was testing on rats, he had no intention of harming humans. Therefore, someone has disposed of him and stolen his work for evil intentions, believing him to have no relatives alive as the brother was supposedly dead. It is imperative we find who this person is and obtain the antidote before London sees a catastrophe on a scale never known before.”

They rattled along through the swirling fog as dawn broke, until they came to the unfortunate girl’s home.

They pulled on their face masks and entered. Watson was feeling sick with nerves, emotion and lack of sleep. His companion was quite alert, eyes bright with the challenge that lay before him.